Phil:

I have not been in contact with any of the folks working on the getula group of kingsnakes, so can't offer any details. However, my strong hunch is that those "clades" you refer to will be elevated to full species--in other words, there will be L. getula (to include getula and floridana), L. splendida (with splendida, holbrooki, niger), and L. californiae (with californiae and nigrita)--Blaney's groups--or whatever the evidence suggests. That assumes that the DNA analysis finds support for continued recognition of the various subspecies. The critical issues in such studies are:

1. How many evolutionary lineages (= clades) are there?
2. What happens where these clades meet? Is there evidence of extensive gene exchange?--if so, that is suggestive of adjoining subspecies or groups that were separated but whose populations are now connected. Probably this would result in these groups being maintained under a single species name. If there is little evidence of gene exchange where the ranges of these clades approach one another, you can infer that these are separate species.

For anyone who has paid attention to snake systematics in recent years, the trend has been that when widespread, geographically variable "species" are examined in greater detail (whether using DNA or more traditional characters), these forms are found to comprise multiple species. Some familiar examples are the gopher/bullsnake complex, and West Coast garter snakes. So, the smart money says L. getula will be broken up into multiple species units. And, wait until the L. triangulum work unfolds--maybe we should start a pool to guess how many species are represented by the triangulum umbrella.

Cheers,

Bob Hansen

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